1. Field of the invention
The present invention relates to a vehicle lamp housing. More particularly, the present invention relates to a plastic vehicle lamp housing having a primary mounting means with an integrally formed breakaway bracket incorporated therein, as well as a backup or supplemental mounting means incorporated therein, and to a method of using the housing.
2. Description of the Background Art
In the automotive industry, there has been, of late, a movement away from the use of relatively large, standardized sealed beam headlamps of a few limited shapes, such as round and rectangular. Instead, much smaller illuminating bulbs are being used, in combination with relatively large, custom-molded, one-piece housing units which are unique to a particular vehicle line, and which each house a plurality of illuminating bulbs. Such combinations advantageously permit the headlamp assemblies, and other lamps assemblies on the vehicle to play a larger role in vehicle styling, especially in an aerodynamic sense, because these custom housing units can be produced with great flexibility in size, shape, appearance, exterior surface contours, and the like, as compared to the old sealed headlamps.
Generally, these new lamp housing assemblies tend to be significantly larger and significantly more expensive than the old sealed headlamps. For purposes of cost reduction, the housing units tend to be molded of plastic, and include outwardly extending, integrally formed mounting brackets or posts or feet for retentively attaching the housing to the vehicle body.
One illustrative example of a combination lamp housing using this type of outwardly extending mounting member is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,660,456 to Shinkai et al. In the design of Shinkai et al., a plastic post or pin formed integrally with the lamp housing is used to secure the housing to a vehicle body by pressing the pin in place into a concave fastener in the vehicle body. A novel aspect of Shinkai's invention is that a plurality of upstanding reinforcement ribs are arranged radially around the base of the pin such that the pin extends indirectly from the housing through the ribs, for thereby avoiding undesirable shrinkage phenomena. Bolt insertion holes are also provided along an upper peripheral edge of the housing in this design.
Unfortunately the large, one-piece housing bodies tend to be a basis for significant repair expense. Specifically, if the outwardly extending integral mounting brackets, posts, etc. of the lamp housing are broken or snapped off in a collision or otherwise, the entire housing will generally have to be replaced even if the rest of the housing body is otherwise undamaged and the externally visible portions thereof appear normal. This is because it is not possible to reattach the broken mounting brackets or to attach replacement mounting brackets to the housing units through welding, mechanical fasteners, etc., without detrimentally affecting the integrity and/or outward appearance of the housing units. Moreover, the integral mounting brackets and other mounting portions tend to be broken even in low or moderate speed collisions, again requiring significant replacement expense. As will be understood, this is not only very expensive, but unnecessarily consumes significant resources generating the large replacement housing bodies, and adds to landfill problems in disposing of the replaced, damaged units.
From the foregoing, it will also be understood that there is a significant need in the art for a simple, low-cost alternative to replacing a molded plastic lamp housing in the event that an outwardly extending mounting portion thereof is damaged or snapped off, but the housing is otherwise undamaged.